People whom I respect have brought up different arguments about why she is unpopular. (I find the ones criticizing San Francisco’s quality-of-life issues to be particularly unconvincing — sorry Paul.) Correlation is not causation — that logical error is epidemic in political discussions. She is a participant and name-figure in a broken political system — a breakage for which she is emphatically not responsible. But in any event, she’s not drastically worse off than Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell in approval ratings.

The simplest reasons, and (Occam’s razor) the ones I therefore find convincing, are these:
1. She’s liberal;
2. She’s a woman;
3. She’s effective;
4. Reasons 1 through 3 are greater than the sum of their parts.

Gender scholars would not be surprised. For a 2010 paper in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the Yale researchers Victoria Brescoll and Tyler Okimoto showed study participants the fictional biographies of two state senators, identical except that one was named John Burr and the other Ann Burr. (I referred to this study in an October 2016 article for this magazine called “Fear of a Female President.”) When quotations were added that described the state senators as “ambitious” and possessing “a strong will to power,” John Burr became more popular. But the changes provoked “moral outrage” toward Ann Burr, whom both men and women became less willing to support.

(This will come as no surprise to basically any professional woman I’ve ever spoken to.)

Human beings come and go. I don’t have any particular brief for or against Pelosi right now — except that as far as legislative leadership is concerned, she’s got receipts, as the kids say: The Affordable Care Act; the cap-and-trade bill (which failed in the Senate); on and on. Remember that she was the only Democratic Speaker in the Gingrich/Fox News era. Mostly, she got it done while she could; but nothing’s permanent.

But it’s not really about her in particular.

What it is about, is women in positions of leadership. We just saw a female candidate for President get absolutely bombarded with all manner of sexist double-standards. HRC was not perfect, nor is Pelosi. But what they were, is real, actual people, not hypothetical “perfect” candidates, much less “perfect female” candidates. If you say you support women being in positions of power .. well, we’ve got a real, living, breathing one in Pelosi, and she’s got her merits and faults.

So I only ask that you compare her to real-life, actual alternatives. Tim Ryan, eg. bombed his audition for leadership. Seth Moulton talks big about changing leadership but I don’t see any actual new policy or messaging ideas emanating from him.

Any real-life alternative candidate for Minority Leader/Speaker will be one of the following:

ideologically heterodox; too far-left/centrist

from the “wrong” kind of district;

the “wrong” ethnicity;

too old/too young;

oratorically dull or maladroit; (or maybe, “too slick”)

the “wrong” gender;

etc.

For example: If you installed Katherine Clark (say) as Minority Leader, do you think the right-wing wouldn’t demonize her? Would she be popular in PA-18? If Elizabeth Warren runs for President, do you think she’ll face the same kind of prejudices? (Hasn’t she already?)

If we support women in leadership, we will have to fight this battle. We will have to confront the widely-held prejudice against women in leadership, and we must win. Again, not necessarily for Pelosi or any particular woman, but for women in general — real ones that exist, not political-fantasy figures.

I was asked to represent the Jay Gonzalez campaign at my caucus, but in the end he came and spoke for himself. So, even though I haven’t been active on BMG for some time, I decided to post my talk here where people who are thinking about the governors race would see it.
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When I started to get calls to work on Jay’s campaign I was thinking something many of you may be thinking: Charlie Baker is unbeatable. But I asked a variety of people what they think Charlie has done for the state, and got mostly surprised silence.

In answer to the flip side of that question, I got lots of answers. Read More…

Since I think we can agree that racism, sexism, and other bigoted nastiness is a rather over-served market on today’s internet:

Please don’t be surprised that when you “sneak” a few “clever” ethnic remarks into a post — however interesting, provocative, or on-point it may otherwise be — the entire post will be deleted, without warning or explanation.

As we’ve said, it’s a bizarre, literally Orwellian doublethink argument: They’re asking you to believe that building more fossil infrastructure is actually better for the environment. If that sounds — to put it generously — counter-intuitive, Slate-pitchy, contrarian, and indeed far-fetched … well, you’re not the only one. In any event, bold claims require bold evidence: Shouldn’t the Globe have done the math on GHG emissions based on a few different scenarios? Break out some charts and data?

Speaking in his own capacity, Boston’s Energy Efficiency and Distributed Resources Finance Manager Joe LaRusso counts as a very informed observer. His tweet-thread started here – do read the whole thing:

1/ Once again the @BostonGlobe has oversimplified the debate of building pipelines to bring #natgas into NE, and it has resorted to ad hominem attacks on opponents: their politics are “faddish,” their motive a doctrinaire sense of “moral purity.” https://t.co/wq8qxUcLaH#mapoli

The pipeline will cost between $3.2B (per the utilities) and $6.6B (per Synapse energy consultants). We would pay for that one way or another. They’re not building it for free.

While LNG has been delivered into Boston for 47 years, *two* shipments have been Russian. Those are the baby-seal-killing shipments the Globe warned about in lachrymose fashion. (Where are they getting this stuff?)

We’re not fully using the pipeline capacity we have — whether or not the reason is anti-competitive.

While grid reliability is a concern going forward, there are many ways to skin that cat that don’t involve expensive building of new fossil fuel infrastructure.

In other words, the justifications are pretty flimsy for building more gas pipelines — at great expense: up-front; to the climate and air quality; in the opportunity cost of crowding out renewables — which means jobs in Massachusetts.

The chirpy, personal tone adopted by the news professionals at the Globe was shockingly sub-standard; and it’s also a tell that their arguments are substantively weak.

While a lot of the political world rotates around what happens in Boston, here on Cape Cod, we are looking to make some significant changes and holds on our State House delegation. Our first term state senator, Julian Cyr, has a tough re-election fight ahead. Senator Cyr has made a tremendous impact during his initial term and we will fight hard and win to hold that seat. Most of the House delegation on this side of the bridge is GOP, save for Representative Sarah Peake, who is currently unopposed. Cape Democrats are looking to get challengers in all those races. Read More…